As I begin my remarks I want to share with you the thoughts of a WWII veteran who is a friend of IP. He worries that many who fought in our wars felt remorse for the things they were forced to do but died without ever having a chance to feel forgiven.
He asked me to share this prayer with you on their behalf.
Dear God, Father and Mother of us all. Those who have fought in war have a special need for thy forgiveness and mercy, for we have killed thy children. Help us to follow now in the footsteps of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Amen.
As today we honor the memory of all who have died in war and other forms of organized violence, I know that there is a wish in all of our hearts that none of the horrors of war had ever happened, or that we could somehow undo them.
The celebrated American novelist Kurt Vonnegut spoke eloquently to this wish in his novel, Slaughter House Five. Vonnegut who died just a little over a month ago, was a survivor of the terrible fire bombing of the unarmed city of Dresden, Germany, in the closing weeks of WWII. That experience made him a tireless opponent of war. In his novel, Slaughter House Five, the main character, named Billy Pilgrim, watches a WWII era movie on TV that chronicles the activities of bomber pilots. In a strange twist, Billy Pilgrim watches the movie’s action unfold backwards in time.
Here is how Vonnegut described what Billy sees:
American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England . Over France , a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.
The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks.
When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.
Would that we COULD undo it all.
Would that we could undo it all.
But we can't.
And if we can’t undo the past, our hope may be to look for models within our religious traditions of individuals who can find the spiritual resources to pursue peace and justice non-violently with the same fervor and determination with which nations pursue all-out war.
At a recent Tent of Abraham, Hagar and Sarah gathering I learned of one such story…that of Abdul Gaffar Khan.
Badshah Khan, as he was known, was a contemporary of Gandhi, who discovered the deep roots of non-violent direct action within his religion: Islam and its Holy Book the Qu’ran.
Badshah Khan was native to the land now known as Pakistan and was a Pashtun, a people renowned for being the fiercest of the fierce warriors in the sub-continent. In spite of that…perhaps because of that…Badshah Khan created a non-violent movement in 1929 called the Khudai Khidmatgar which eventually included more that 100,000 Pashtuns. These men, women and children withstood mass killings, torture and the destruction of their homes and fields and used active non-violence to seek peace and justice and political independence. They sought justice not only for themselves, but also for Hindus, Sikhs and others.
The Badshah interpreted Islam as a moral code with pacifism at its center. He told people that that Islam operates on a simple principle—never hurt anyone by tongue, by gun, or by hand…Not to lie, steal or harm is true Islam.”
My hope is that all of us will look ever more earnestly for the sources of non-violence within our own religions and most importantly within our own hearts.
He asked me to share this prayer with you on their behalf.
Dear God, Father and Mother of us all. Those who have fought in war have a special need for thy forgiveness and mercy, for we have killed thy children. Help us to follow now in the footsteps of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Amen.
As today we honor the memory of all who have died in war and other forms of organized violence, I know that there is a wish in all of our hearts that none of the horrors of war had ever happened, or that we could somehow undo them.
The celebrated American novelist Kurt Vonnegut spoke eloquently to this wish in his novel, Slaughter House Five. Vonnegut who died just a little over a month ago, was a survivor of the terrible fire bombing of the unarmed city of Dresden, Germany, in the closing weeks of WWII. That experience made him a tireless opponent of war. In his novel, Slaughter House Five, the main character, named Billy Pilgrim, watches a WWII era movie on TV that chronicles the activities of bomber pilots. In a strange twist, Billy Pilgrim watches the movie’s action unfold backwards in time.
Here is how Vonnegut described what Billy sees:
American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England . Over France , a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.
The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks.
When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.
Would that we COULD undo it all.
Would that we could undo it all.
But we can't.
And if we can’t undo the past, our hope may be to look for models within our religious traditions of individuals who can find the spiritual resources to pursue peace and justice non-violently with the same fervor and determination with which nations pursue all-out war.
At a recent Tent of Abraham, Hagar and Sarah gathering I learned of one such story…that of Abdul Gaffar Khan.
Badshah Khan, as he was known, was a contemporary of Gandhi, who discovered the deep roots of non-violent direct action within his religion: Islam and its Holy Book the Qu’ran.
Badshah Khan was native to the land now known as Pakistan and was a Pashtun, a people renowned for being the fiercest of the fierce warriors in the sub-continent. In spite of that…perhaps because of that…Badshah Khan created a non-violent movement in 1929 called the Khudai Khidmatgar which eventually included more that 100,000 Pashtuns. These men, women and children withstood mass killings, torture and the destruction of their homes and fields and used active non-violence to seek peace and justice and political independence. They sought justice not only for themselves, but also for Hindus, Sikhs and others.
The Badshah interpreted Islam as a moral code with pacifism at its center. He told people that that Islam operates on a simple principle—never hurt anyone by tongue, by gun, or by hand…Not to lie, steal or harm is true Islam.”
My hope is that all of us will look ever more earnestly for the sources of non-violence within our own religions and most importantly within our own hearts.
posted by Interfaith Paths to Peace at 4:15 PM
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